When you are trying to establish characters with long standing relationships, it’s important to have believable history. Our new show this winter, Mrs. Frost, has many character who have known each other from way back. If I’m going to make the weight of their history have actual impact on their interactions, I have to know what happened between them— at least in the important moments. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out the specifics, because specificity is how you create fully realized characters that have all the uniqueness of believable human beings.
In Gilded Cages, the relationship between Victoria and Elizabeth is incredibly important. They are as close as sisters and care about each other, but the connection is colored by Victoria’s blithe sense of entitlement, and Elizabeth’s position of greater responsibility and significantly less privilege. I really enjoy establishing these kinds of complications in people’s feelings for each other, because it makes for really interesting dramatic dynamics.
In this short scene recording, we see the last interaction Elizabeth and Victoria have before they each marry and their lives go their separate ways. I endeavored to capture the particular complexity of their friendship. Also, it establishes where they left one another when they still had a relationship worth speaking of. I love to temper sweetness with sadness, affection with conflict.
This is Bottom Drawer, by Phoebe Roberts, featuring the voice talents of Cari Keebaugh as Victoria Stanton and Arielle Kaplan as Elizabeth Danvers.
Warning: spoilers for Mrs. Hawking IV: Gilded Cages.
It’s been really exciting seeing the new part V: Mrs. Frost script stand up in rehearsals. Due to the schedule on which this one was written, there was not a lot of breathing room between finishing it and beginning to rehearse. We made a movie this summer, so perhaps we can be forgiven, but it meant I didn’t have that chance to sit with it for a while, shed the stress of the push to finish, and enjoy what I’d accomplished with fresh eyes.
But something I’ve worked very hard to do in this story is to make it feel like a living, breathing, fully-fleshed-out world, beyond just what is needed for any one individual story. When you do multiple installments of a piece, it has to feel like the characters are rounded individuals who have more to them than just what’s relevant in one given moment. So I spend a lot of time developing them and their backstories, in order to feel like they have arrived organically at their current places based on a genuine human history. That means figuring out things that happened to them outside even what makes its way into the plays, and using how those experiences informed their needs and actions now.
By this token, I thought a lot of what Mrs. Frost brings into this story. She has a lot of complicated and not always positive history with the other characters, and she is famous for using what she knows about people’s secret selves against them. This is relevant for how she deals with Nathaniel, who she attempts to break down psychologically by manipulating his insecurities and fears. And a powerful tool she has for this is her experience with his hero the Colonel, over whom he is obsessed with the fact that he didn’t know as much as he thought.
Gilded Cages, scene 1.5
To that end, I had to hammer out some important things about the interactions of Frost and the Colonel. Some of that made it into this extra scene, which takes place just after the Colonel started traveling abroad more as a way to get out of the house, and of Mrs. Hawking’s way. I had my amazing cast members do a rough recording of it, with Arielle Kaplan as Mrs. Frost (then Mrs. Cameron), and Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Reginald Hawking, in a scene I’m calling “Hard Truth.”
Warning: possible spoilers for part IV: Gilded Cages.
It’s always amazing to hear the actual actors perform these on the fly. It really helps solidify the moment in my mind and make it come to life, like it was something that really did happen in the history of the characters. I feel like we bring more texture to the full performances when the characters are so grounded in such rich development. And when you come to see Mrs. Frost, see if you can spot the moment the title character makes reference to an important moment from this scene.
I really enjoy depicting the relationships between the characters, particularly when it’s a character I don’t get to work with often in the main stories. I absolutely love the character of Justin Hawking, but I don’t know if he’ll ever get to show back up in the stage series. In the meantime, I like playing around with the backstory that involves him, as it’s always guaranteed to have that blend of humor and pathos that I love. Even though these recordings are made very informally, I’m always impressed with the actors ability to adapt their performances to whatever stage of development their characters are in any given piece. You can definitely hear that these are a significantly younger Nathaniel and Justin, which helps ground this moment in the course of their journeys.
This is “Last Night Before,” by Phoebe Roberts, taking place just before Nathaniel and Clara’s wedding, when the two brothers are out celebrating. It features Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Nathaniel Hawking and Christian Krenek as Justin Hawking.
To donate to the Mrs. Hawking – Proof of Concept film project:
Here’s another bit of Hawking bonus material— featuring the first-ever performance of Ambrose Hawking, Nathaniel and Justin’s dad and Reginald’s older brother.
I really enjoy making these audio recordings of outside scenes to flesh out the world and story line around the main narrative of the plays. The more you think through characters’ journeys, figuring out where they came from and how they got to the places they are, the better able you are to design a truly complete and consistent arc for them. Although it’s generally considered better craft if you develop the characters simultaneously with advancing the narrative, I really like them as relationship explorations, which more thoroughly explore the characters we’ve come to care about.
Gilded Cages, scene 1.3
It’s so amazing hearing the cast read these moments. In this piece, we have Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Reginald Hawking, with Pieter Wallace, who’s come on for the Watch City ’18 performance as Lord Brockton, stepping into the role of Ambrose. It makes it feel a little more real, like something you can really believe happened in the history of these characters.
Today’s piece “No Knights” expands upon an idea that hangs over part IV: Gilded Cages— how the Colonel was, later in his life, offered a knighthood that he turned down. This is an issue that becomes very important to Nathaniel in that show, and this piece elaborates on how that small detail had big effects on the family. It also explores a bit of a relationship that we know exists but haven’t seen anything of— that between the brothers Reginald and Ambrose, Nathaniel’s oft-mentioned but thus far unseen father. Jeremiah and Peter invest real pathos in the moment, particularly in their effort to convey slightly older, more world-wearied men.
I’m really proud of what this amazing cast can do with this background scribbles. If you’d like to see them in action, be sure to check out our upcoming free May 12th performances at the Watch City Steampunk Festival.
Because I enjoy playing around in the Hawking universe, getting to know other aspects of the characters’ stories, I enjoy writing extra scenes. Usually these will never appear in the action of one of the main plays, but I find it both interesting and instructive to establish where the characters came from to understand where they are now.
This is a sort of “deleted scene” of part IV: Gilded Cages. It’s something that would have happened during the period the flashback covers, and makes sense as part of the progress of the narrative. And yet, it still doesn’t really belong in the actual play. Dramatic works must be tight, and particularly in a play this full, you have to be ruthlessly efficient with what you include. When part of it is supposed to be about how one character came to fall in love with another, you have to make things MOVE— you basically have three scenes, in order to have the characters meet, have one of them fall, and be in love in a credible way. So, while this moment almost certainly happened in the progress of young Victoria and Reginald’s relationship, and definitely bridges the scenes we do see of them in the play, there isn’t really room for it in the final piece. It simply develops; it does not show us anything new.
I had the talented actors who play these characters, Cari Keebaugh as Victoria and Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Reginald, record the scene as an informal audio performance. These scenes are never rigorously edited, nor recorded in a particularly painstaking fashion. But I think they’re fun to listen to as a little bonus, to get a little bit more of what we love of these actors in their characters.
So this piece is called “Now Where You’re Standing,” a sort of “deleted scene” from the continuity of Mrs. Hawking part IV: Gilded Cages.
To catch the story in its entirety, join us for the 6pm performance of Gilded Cages on Saturday, May 12th at the Watch City Steampunk Festival and catch it in action from our amazing cast.
We have another scene made into an audio recording! This time, it’s another moment from earlier in our story’s timeline, a follow up of sorts to “True Gentlemen,” the previous scene we recorded like this.
This scene, “Enough to Compare,” was written as the capper to my 2017 foray in 31 Plays in 31 Days, and features Justin finally finding out that Nathaniel and Clara have begun a relationship. It’s much more humorous in tone than our previous scene— as anything with Justin tends to be! —but it also aims to capture some of the more touching emotional quality that comes from drama between close family members. One of the reasons I particularly enjoy writing scenes between these two characters is because they are both in constant conflict, while simultaneously caring about each other a great deal. It gives a great opportunity for a combination of humor and pathos& dash; one of my favorite ways to tell stories.
As I mentioned with the last one, these scenes are a little rough and the recordings are very informal. But these scene particularly makes me smile, and Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Nathaniel and Christian Krenek as Justin are delightful. So check this out for a laugh and a warm fuzzy feeling, and to learn a little bit more about the greater Hawking story. And if you enjoy their performances, catch Jeremiah as Nathaniel and Christian as Justin in our shows at Arisia 2018!
Mrs. Hawking parts III: Base Instruments and IV: Gilded Cages by Phoebe Roberts are to be performed January 12th-14th as part of Arisia 2018 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.
By this point, I’ve been noodling around with stories set in the Mrs. Hawking continuity for several years now. It’s fun to explore these characters beyond just what makes it into the plays, plus it’s helpful for me to know where they’re going if I know where they came from. And I think it can be really interesting to learn the histories of the characters you’ve gotten to know over the course of the series!
A lot of these scenes and moments will never make it into plays. Either they’re from outside the times we’re dealing with, or just don’t fit into the important dramatic moments the full-length shows focus on. But there’s still drama and interest in a lot of these scenes, and I’d like to be able to feature them somehow!
To that end, I’m doing little informal recordings of them, with the actors who play these characters in the full-length shows. The scenes are a little unpolished, and not a lot of rehearsal will go into them. But I think they can be fun little treats for people who have gotten to know the characters of this series and would like to see a little more from them!
The first of these is a staged reading of “True Gentleman,” a scene I wrote from the courtship of Nathaniel and Clara. We know they’re married by the time the shows begin in 1880, and references to their history together have been made. But I thought it might be cute to do a small scene from the beginning of their romantic relationship.
So here’s “True Gentleman,” featuring Jeremiah O’Sullivan as Nathaniel and Sara Smith as Clara. Enjoy!
And if you liked that, be sure to come see Jeremiah and Sara on stage as these characters at Arisia 2018 in Base Instruments and Gilded Cages!
Mrs. Hawking parts III: Base Instruments and IV: Gilded Cages by Phoebe Roberts are to be performed January 12th-14th as part of Arisia 2018 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.
